Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Australian CSIRO has claimed that global warming increases both the incidence of frost, and the amount of damage frost causes to crops.
According to the CSIRO;
University of Queensland research scientist, Dr Jack Christopher, said climate modelling of 60 years’ worth of data has shown that while average temperatures have been increasing, the incidence and impact of frost has also increased during that period.
“One of the main factors causing that is the fact that the plants are actually growing a lot quicker in the warmer weather, so that when they’re planted at what we think is the correct time, they’re actually flowering too soon and are flowering during a much higher frost risk period than was intended,” he said.
Frost damage costs Australian agriculture millions of dollars each year due to reduced yield.
“On average, we’re losing around 10 per cent of the crop nationally, so that’s a huge loss in terms of yield and in terms of dollars,” Dr Christopher said.
“So if we’ve got 24 million tonnes of wheat in an average year, it may be $250 a tonne, that might be $6 billion worth of wheat, so 10 per cent of that is $600 million in an average year, so it’s a huge loss.”
Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-21/qch-frost-field-trial/6715106
The abstract of the study;
Radiant spring frosts occurring during reproductive developmental stages can result in catastrophic yield loss for wheat producers. To avoid frost during susceptible heading stages, wheat crops are often sown later than is optimal for maximum yield given seasonal rainfall limitations, for example. To better understand the spatial and temporal variability of frost, occurrence and impact of frost events on rainfed wheat production was estimated across the Australian wheatbelt using 0.05° gridded weather datasets. Current genotypes are assumed to be sensitive at Stevenson-screen temperatures lower than 0°C, and simulated yield outcomes at 60 key locations were compared to those for virtual genotypes with different levels of frost tolerance for early-, mid- and late- maturity types and a wide range of sowing dates. No significant trend in frost occurrence over time was observed in most parts of the Australian wheatbelt over the last 57 years. However, more frost events, later last frost day and a significant increase in frost impact on yield was estimated in certain areas, in particular in the South-East and several parts of the West. Across Australia, we found that mean yield could be improved by between 10% and 20% on average if frost tolerant lines were available. Considering frost seasons only, the mean yield could be improved by 50 to %100 by frost tolerance. Across all seasons for the wheatbelt, yield increases resulted from (1) reduced frost damage (ca. 10% improvement) and (2) the ability to use earlier sowing dates to increase yield potential (additional 10% improvement in East). Simulations indicate that genotypes with an improved frost tolerance of 1°C lower than the 0°C reference would provide substantial benefit in most wheat production areas. Greater tolerance ((to 3°C lower temperatures) would provide further benefits in the eastern cropping regions but not in the west. Our results indicate that breeding for a level of reproductive frost tolerance that is at least 1°C lower than present should remain a priority for the Australian wheat industry, despite an average warming trend in the winter season.
Read more: https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/pub?pid=csiro:EP149710
I personally find it fascinating that “global warming” is now supposed to cause more frequent frosts, later in the growing season, in susceptible areas. Having said that, in my opinion, an estimation model built upon the kind of grossly adjusted temperature data Australia produces, is not a very compelling chain of evidence upon which to base a conclusion.
Firstly, global warming is insignificant to cause frost. At the same time in areas with frost risk, scientists have developed frost tollerent seed varieties. Plant has two components, namely growth and development. Secondly, crop development is a function of day length and meteorological parameters are secondary. The new varieties developed have a range of tollerance under different meorological conditions. Thirdly, crop growth is a function of incidence radiation and moisture. In the Quensland zone, rainfall is highly variable and thus temperature — see my Ph.D. Thesis in ANU Library. Soil types play important role in frost conditions.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Seems to me that they’ve accepted that the decades long Antarctic cooling and expanding ice shelf is going to make things cooler in Australia (at least short-term) and are trying to weave that cooling into their AGW narrative. Just like Holdren’s quote above about warming meaning cooling.
Didn’t Hansen also say something similar?
Modelling, schmodelling…
How about “sixty years of climate DATA shows” blah blah blah.
Oh no, of course not, because the actual DATA wouldn’t show anything to support the narrative – unless it was “adjusted” of course.
Lying liars the whole lot of them.
They looked at 60 years of “Quality Controlled” Data and came to a conclusion based on that crap data.
They may have been doing serious work, but if they were it shows how corrupted data leads to incorrect conclusions, practically any study using “final” land based temperature data is going to get the wrong answers.
Where was that paper…Spring is two days earlier per degree C … so farmers are planting their crops 1.6327 days earlier, thus incurring greater risk of a frost? Maybe they should just wait 0.023 days later to plant, and the risk will decrease by 42-83%
The problem seems to be that plants are growing too fast. Oh dear, whatever will we do? Stupid, greedy plants.
Even if this claim was true, it would be ridiculous!
Where are the Mark Twains of our time, who might call out the absurdities that pass for rational thought today!
*raises hand insistently*
Up is down..black is white…bad is good…hot is cold…
I love Big Brother.
We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
I stopped reading the press release right there. A model proves nothing. When you base your study on something unproven and unprovable, then the rest of the study is junk. However, whenever I see “studies” that make the claim “cold = hotter earth”, to me what it really is saying “ignore your freezing rear-end and high heating bill, it is warmer somewhere else so don’t stop believing you are to blame for earth’s problems”.
Where I live, nobody plants earlier than the standard farming/gardening rules developed 130 years ago. In 1890, everyone knew when crops could be semi-safely planted and these dates are not one single day earlier.
In my mind, Frost is one of those pure physical facts that can not be adjusted away. The Frost dates are not moving which means the temperatures are not moving either. The fact that crops are not being grown in ever more northerly/closer to the poles locations also means the growing seasons are not changing.
I don’t see how these climate change prophesy scientists can continue putting out these studies which completely contradict the prophesies of global warming and remain sane. I mean, shouldn’t they blow a fuse at some point. Maybe they never were that stable to begin with. Maybe they don’t care about integrity and facts don’t matter. Much simpler explanations.
I am in north western part of Illinois.
My son gave me a book, Man and Climate, published in 1942 by the US Dept. of Agriculture.
They have frost maps and tables for each state.
And based on these maps, I still cannot plant tomatoes any earlier than the maps indicated 73 years ago.
No warming to be detected at all. You can’t fool farmers with BS computer models.
Like engineers, they are dependent on facts and what works over time.
Right. If planting is done too soon, people lose all of their money.
This has a way of elimination BS.
The logic is infallible:
The plants are growing to fast, caused by warmer weather
Plants require CO2, so faster growth uses up more CO2
Frost occurs when it’s cold
Thus,
Increased warmth causes cold
Increased photosynthesis causes more CO2
When did the climate science community add circular logic to the curriculum?
Anyone bother to read the study? Nup- didn’t think so.
Re the remarks about the prickly pear cactus, brought in as rough fodder and “for use as a natural agricultural fence and in an attempt to establish a cochineal dye industry”, and the moths ( Cactoblastis cactorum) were brought in to keep the cactus under. “Cane toads were introduced to Australia from Hawaii in June 1935 by the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations, now the Sugar Research Australia in an attempt to control the native grey-backed cane beetle (Dermolepida albohirtum) and Frenchi beetle (Lepidiota frenchi).” (Just one trouble, the cane toads did not like eating the beetles, and ate other things!) Perhaps it is about time that CSIRO became useful and found something that would keep the Paris-ites under.
Quotes from Wikipaedia articles.
Here in East Anglia we have growing Spring sown and Winter sown Wheat fo decades. In my lifetime I have seen yields increase massively. In the 1950s a crop 1to 1.5 tons was the norm
It is 3.5 to 4tons plus. also potatoes and sugar beet have more than doubled during the same time.
I put it down to superb plant breeders which we have in GB, and some of the finest farmer’s in the world plus a little extra co2. Luckily we not reliant upon people who talk ball’s for a living!!
Again, correlation is not causation!
Mindless contribution. Did you know that it IS correlation in the first place that brings scrutiny to a possible cause of a phenomenon? This hackneyed bromide is meaningless without a fuller treatment. The contention of this caution is to warn that:
‘Although correlation is necessary for determining causation, its presence doesn’t necessarily mean you have found causation.’
For example, roosters crow before sunrise, but they are not causes of the sunrise.
But there’s no ice in the arctic anymore. It dissapeared in 2013 and frosts are a thing of the past. Along with snow. But maybe these new warmed frosts are back radiating the trapped heat to like, you know, cook the plants?
“Radiant spring frosts” Sounds to me like the greenhouse gases are not adequate to protect crops. We obviously need more CO2 and Methane in the atmosphere to keep the down welling long wave at adequate levels to protect the crops.
Dry air causes these events.
And we should have less of that, according to GCMs.
In fact, the whole CAGW meme demands water vapor induced feedback!
Farming must have been a whole lot simpler and easier before this climate change business. Either that, or farmers have gotten dumber.
Things have gotten so bad our children will never know good science. An entire generation, having grown to adulthood, has never been told the truth about climate, nor have they personally experienced global warming yet no generation is more convinced the opposite is true. The green train has gone off the rails. How can we have gone so wrong?
Climate change is not only fictional science it’s fictional revisionist history. I believe for a large extent that this is the History taught in higher learning institutions all over the west. If academia is going to change or distort history then why not science? Sooner or later politics trumps science in a society thst values collectivism and tribalism over individualism and objective logic. People seem to have amnesia when trying to think of political ruses funded by governments. They really think such a thing could never happen. Would you jump off the George Washington bridge if all the popular people did it? The answer for most people is yes and that is why I believe climate change has such legs. Wuwt is an exception to this rule.
Apologies the yields I quoted are Imperial tons per acre
They continue to dis-proving global warming theory…
Nights are supposed to get warmer.
Lordy. Messy study about post-headed spring wheat dry freeze damage. Australia has a marginal wheat producing environment. So adaptation is key either through genetics within a variety or changing varieties.
Here are some words from the study that may need a glossary.
“Rainfed” means dryland wheat which is more often than not grown in fields every other year, also referred to as strip farming, which leaves a field fallow for a year to rest and soak up rain inbetween productivity.
“Post heading” frost damage is different than pre-emergence freeze damage. The study concentrated on damage to wheat after it headed out with baby grains. In the US most of our issues related to freeze damage is in the early winter through early spring for winter wheat, and late spring for spring wheat before either variety heads.
“Radiant” frost refers to dry cold air sucking moisture out of and away from plants (low humidity/low temperatures). The photo of the fruit in this post does not show radiant freezing, and instead shows the results of a freezing rain (high humidity/cold temperatures). Freezing rain can actually be less damaging than dry radiant freeze damage as icing up can have coating insulating properties that a dry cold freeze cannot have.
Final comments about the paper. Australia does not have decent (hell not even poor) records of actual freeze damage with spring wheat that has headed out. This means that the researchers’ results that purport to produce “simulated” damaging post-head freeze events means that this study cannot be compared against observations. It is a hindcast that cannot be verified. If I were a farmer in Australia, this paper would be taken to the outhouse for better use.
http://jxb.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/04/27/jxb.erv163.full.pdf+html
By the way, it took me less than a minute to find the full copy of the research. Those who post should engage in due diligence to find the full paper and provide the link in their post. Granted, sometimes it just isn’t available. But this one was easy to find and link to.
trans: We took a miniscule time slice of the climate cycle and created a long term trend from it.
Wipes all credibility of any prediction.
As an Aeronautical Engineer, I anxiously await the day when the green warming scam hits the aircraft industry. After all, we all know that warm, less dense air produces less lift, therefore the increase in aircraft accidents must be caused by this fact, since everything is warming! Oh wait. It also causes cooling, which means more dense air, thus more lift, so it must be a good thing! Only the cooling leads to more warming, so then less lift, so kill the nasty CO2! Where do I get my grant check for circular reasoning?